An interesting way to look at electric vehicle efficiency

JOhnH said:
You are right of course, but there is more to it.

Wind does blow somewhere day and night. And every KW of power that is generated from Wind is one KW that is not generated from a polluting fuel that has probably been purchased from a country that supports terrorists. That is money that could be spent as wages to purchase American made turbines that employ Americans.

And even though solar generators are useless at night; they are useful during the day when demand is at its peak. By contributing solar to the mix we reduce the need to build more fossil fuel plants. And again, every KW produced by solar is one KW that is NOT produced by purchasing fuel from terrorists.

In all the talk about comparing apples to potatoes, we lose sight of the fact that we send billions and billions of dollars overseas every day to purchase a product that pollutes our air and water and finances those that hate us. It sickens me when I see those Arab sheiks with their huge fortunes when the only source of their wealth is oil. I say let them drink their oil. We can replace a huge amount of our oil consumption with natural gas, alternative fuels and nuclear energy. We can use domestic oil where we absolutely need to have an oil product and stop importing it. Even if we can't get all the way there, we must do everything we can to get close or our country will surely perish.

Maybe today's technology is not there yet. But not technology ever emerged fully mature. We have to go through growing pains, use what works and abandon ideas that don't (like corn based ethanol fuel).
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Canada supports terrorism?
 
Pi1otguy said:
True, but that negates the savings of the plug in capabilities.
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Which is wy the Volt is a somewhat of a joke and really is just another hybrid.

BTW, the Leaf is 100% electric.
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I did not know that. Thanks. Doesn't matter though, I won't be buying a Leaf, Volt, Prius or anything electric or hybrid until it makes economic sense. Just feelgood measures just like airport security and the TSA. Makes people "feel" like they are doing something.
 
Anthony said:
Which is wy the Volt is a somewhat of a joke and really is just another hybrid.




I did not know that. Thanks. Doesn't matter though, I won't be buying a Leaf, Volt, Prius or anything electric or hybrid until it makes economic sense. Just feelgood measures just like airport security and the TSA. Makes people "feel" like they are doing something.
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Plus they don't even get out of the way of themselves, let alone me!
 
If Americans truly wanted to be energy efficient they would drive smaller cars shorter distances or use public transportation.
 
Anthony said:
Doesn't matter though, I won't be buying a Leaf, Volt, Prius or anything electric or hybrid until it makes economic sense. Just feelgood measures just like airport security and the TSA. Makes people "feel" like they are doing something.
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Well, the reduced fuel cost (from the consumer standpoint) is attractive when paired with the tax credit for purchasing one. There are other big unknowns that put me off: lifecycle costs associated with maintenance and battery replacement, resale value, reliability ...

In the final analysis, it ought to be an economic decision rather than a feel-good one.
 
steingar said:
If Americans truly wanted to be energy efficient they would drive smaller cars shorter distances or use public transportation.
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And live stacked on top of each other where you get to hear everything your neighbors say and do. No thanks. I'll take my acre out away from everyone. 50 acres if I could find the right place.
 
EdFred said:
So when it's -5°F and I'm driving my electric car, how am I going to keep warm? Oh, you want the car to be warm? Well, turn on the electric heater and you now have a range of 5 miles.
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The Chevy Volt battery capacity is 8kwh. How many watts do you need to run an electric heater?
-harry
 
mantakos said:
The Chevy Volt battery capacity is 8kwh. How many watts do you need to run an electric heater?
-harry
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You ever been to Michigan in the winter? You need all the watts you can get.
 
SCCutler said:
In addition, the most common hybrid, the Prius, is (in the hands of most drivers I have observed) a dangerous vehicle... because they tool along staring at the status screen in stead of paying attention to driving, and often impede traffic flow in the fast lane. Roughly equivalent to driving while holding a cell phone to the ear. My observation.
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They need to cut down on the size and/or prominence of that display. You don't constantly need to know where the power is coming from in schematic form. I drove a borrowed Prius for a couple weeks last spring but after the novelty wore off I ignored the display. In general I thought it was an OK car although I don't think I would pay a large premium for it.

I'm not sure how you can compare either the cost or environmental impact of electrical power generation to running a car on gasoline since there are so many ways to do it.
 
Telemakhos said:
You ever been to Michigan in the winter? You need all the watts you can get.
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Okay, but there's a number somewhere. What is it?

I'd think that 600 watts would do well in a space the size of a car. Drive 2 hrs a day, and that's about 1/6 of the battery's capacity. Or at 1200 watts, that's about 1/3. It's significant, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.
-harry
 
EdFred said:
Probably 3000 to 5000 or so.
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What are you basing that on?

I had my gas furnace fail, and I kept my house warm in sub-freezing temperatures with three 600w space heaters. My house is small, but it's a lot bigger than a Chevy Volt, though certainly better insulated.

Electric cabin heaters for aircraft are in the 500-1500 watt range.
-harry
 
Maybe they could install a kerosene heater in there somewhere. :D
 
mantakos said:
What are you basing that on?

I had my gas furnace fail, and I kept my house warm in sub-freezing temperatures with three 600w space heaters. My house is small, but it's a lot bigger than a Chevy Volt, though certainly better insulated.

Electric cabin heaters for aircraft are in the 500-1500 watt range.
-harry
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The other thing is: isn't battery life dramatically affected by ambient temperature?
In a non-California operating environment, like the Great Lakes region where I live, the car would get significantly reduced range many months of the year.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...T0VpSe&sig=AHIEtbSvGDW7YkIlcHtdQSQKu4wYl72j3g
 
mantakos said:
What are you basing that on?

I had my gas furnace fail, and I kept my house warm in sub-freezing temperatures with three 600w space heaters. My house is small, but it's a lot bigger than a Chevy Volt, though certainly better insulated.

Electric cabin heaters for aircraft are in the 500-1500 watt range.
-harry
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Basing it on a 1500W I have here at the office, and trying to defrost 6 windows with it. Also, how well do the batteries work at -10°F ?

I also hear people complain about how cold twins can be compared to singles.
 
EdFred said:
Canada supports terrorism?
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I am not sure whether they do or not. But I did say " every KW of power that is generated from Wind is one KW that is not generated from a polluting fuel that has PROBABLY been purchased from a country that supports terrorists."

I put that weasel word "probably" in there because I knew some one would try to wiggle an unintended meaning out of it.

And if I had a choice, I would rather spend American dollars in America rather than in Canada anyway. We cannot sustain the rate at which we are exporting wealth. Even the USA has a limit, and we are approaching that limit faster than Obama's and Geithner's printing presses can churn out cheapened dollars.
 
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EdFred said:
And live stacked on top of each other where you get to hear everything your neighbors say and do. No thanks. I'll take my acre out away from everyone. 50 acres if I could find the right place.
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Sure. But if the oil runs out, it'll be a long walk.
 
JOhnH said:
And if I had a choice, I would rather spend American dollars in America rather than in Canada anyway. We cannot sustain the rate at which we are exporting wealth. Even the USA has a limit, and we are approaching that limit faster than Obama's and Geithner's printing presses can churn out cheapened dollars.
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Some wind turbines are being manufactured in China now. Expect more of that to happen. So much for American dollars in America.
Why not then develop Bakken formation of oil? We can move toward self sufficiency from the Middle Eastern oil. Politics of course.

In addition, we need to continue to mine and burn coal. It can be done economically and environmentally clean. The politics stand in the way more and more, but that is a different matter entirely.
 
Telemakhos said:
The other thing is: isn't battery life dramatically affected by ambient temperature?...
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The Volt apparently has a heater on the battery, so when the car is plugged in the battery is maintained at a good temp for operation, sort of like how we might use an aircraft engine heater. If you park it away from home for long enough, and the battery gets very cold, when it comes time to start the car it apparently can decide to start the gas engine and run the battery heater.
-harry
 
mantakos said:
The Volt apparently has a heater on the battery, so when the car is plugged in the battery is maintained at a good temp for operation, sort of like how we might use an aircraft engine heater.
-harry
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They've thought of everything, those crafty devils.
It still seems like a boondoggle, but hey, maybe it'll catch on and end up doing some good.
At the very least, the Volt looks about 50 times better than the Prius, which looks like a scrunched-up Pontiac Aztek.
 
NC Pilot said:
Some wind turbines are being manufactured in China now.
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Yep. That is another issue where we could put Americans to work. There is no reason we can't manufacture them here, except for the double whammy of higher wages and abusive taxes. We can deal with one (higher wages), but not both.

Why not then develop Bakken formation of oil? We can move toward self sufficiency from the Middle Eastern oil. Politics of course.
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The wild claims about the Bakken formation have a little truth to them, and we should exploit what there is, but the truth about those reserves is nothing like some of the articles on the web make it sound.

In addition, we need to continue to mine and burn coal. It can be done economically and environmentally clean. The politics stand in the way more and more, but that is a different matter entirely.
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I agree completely. But coal alone, or coal AND the Bakken formation cannot possibly satisfy our energy requirements. We need to attack this problem every way possible. We could use almost all the oil we produce domestically for production of plastics and pharmaceuticals. We need replacements for oil to generate power.
 
NC Pilot said:
... Why not then develop Bakken formation of oil?...
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There is drilling being done there.

The problem with the Bakken is that excitable internet blogger types like to get everybody worked up by hyping how much oil is under there, comparing it to Middle East oil reserves, but the difference is that ME oil is very easy to get to, while most of the Bakken oil isn't really accessible.
-harry
 
We have tremendous natural gas reserves. We should tap that more. Its clean, and just about everything can run on it from cars to power plants. And its all domestic energy.
 
Telemakhos said:
This most interesting part of the article for me was the EPA's "MPG equivalent" standard posted on the new vehicle information sticker, and how fraudulent it seems to be.
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Just like calling electric vehicles "emission free". Absolutely misleading.
 
mantakos said:
Okay, but there's a number somewhere. What is it?

I'd think that 600 watts would do well in a space the size of a car. Drive 2 hrs a day, and that's about 1/6 of the battery's capacity. Or at 1200 watts, that's about 1/3. It's significant, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.
-harry
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You sure don't live in Alberta. 600 watts is the size of an electric car warmer and they don't do much at -20°C when the wind is blowing, other than raise your utility bill. On the highway in a real winter 600 watts wouldn't even keep the driver's feet warm. All the windows would frost up and everyone in the car would freeze. Modern cars are now getting so efficient that there's too little waste heat available for heating the car's interior in the dead of a Canadian prairie winter. We're talking below -40°C here, same as -40°F. For weeks sometimes. Density altitude here at 3000'AGL can go to minus 5000'.

Even the electrons freeze in the wires. Smoke freezes in the chimneys. Words freeze when they leave your mouth and fall to the ground, unheard.

Dan
 
The plug-ins have a feature where the car is heated up or cooled down while plugged in to the charging unit. This way the heater or Air conditioner doesn't have to work to get "caught up". It probably doesn't do much for longer drives but for shorter drives it will help substantially.
 
JOhnH said:
The plug-ins have a feature where the car is heated up or cooled down while plugged in to the charging unit. This way the heater or Air conditioner doesn't have to work to get "caught up". It probably doesn't do much for longer drives but for shorter drives it will help substantially.
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Might want to do some logarithmic scales on how long it will stay at 75° when the outside air temp is -20°F and you are moving through the air at 40mph. Anything more than 5 minutes and you're going to be freezing your ass off.
 
EdFred said:
Might want to do some logarithmic scales on how long it will stay at 75° when the outside air temp is -20°F and you are moving through the air at 40mph. Anything more than 5 minutes and you're going to be freezing your ass off.
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aw nuts. I can't remember my thermo well enough (it was <mumble> years ago). Does the relative wind really make a difference?
 
Bob Noel said:
aw nuts. I can't remember my thermo well enough (it was <mumble> years ago). Does the relative wind really make a difference?
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Sure does. What cools off quicker? A heat sink in cold air, or a heat sink with cold air moving across it?
 
mantakos said:
The Chevy Volt battery capacity is 8kwh. How many watts do you need to run an electric heater?
-harry
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The gas heater in my Baron has a 50,000 BTU/hr output and doesn't do as good a job heating the cabin as the heat in my car does with it's interior. Of course the car is insulated better and (usually) isn't moving at 200 mph so the requirements for a small car would likely be a lot less. I think that 10,000 BTU/hr would be a good guess and that converts to about 3 kw. As a result I'd expect that the range of the Volt would be approximately cut to one third of it's non-heated range since the battery capacity will be significantly reduced by a higher than "normal" discharge rate.

OTOH, this is ignoring any use of the heat generated by the motor and controls (likely totalling 10-20% of the motor's energy consumption) but I don't know if the Volt is capable of recovering any of that and directing it to the cabin. If it managed to capture half of this the range reduction wouldn't be quite as bad as that.
 
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steingar said:
If Americans truly wanted to be energy efficient they would drive smaller cars shorter distances or use public transportation.
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Welcome to living in a country that is damn near twice the size of the entire EU! Sorry but "short distances" are relative when your state is larger than many European countries.
 
tdager said:
Welcome to living in a country that is damn near twice the size of the entire EU! Sorry but "short distances" are relative when your state is larger than many European countries.
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This comes up from time to time on the soaring newsgroups. The europeans have trouble understanding why us americans want to be able to pull a glider trailer at 75 mph.
 
tdager said:
Welcome to living in a country that is damn near twice the size of the entire EU! Sorry but "short distances" are relative when your state is larger than many European countries.
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This also comes up when Europeans get after Americans for only speaking one language. It's a survival skill for them. On the other hand, I can drive for a few days and still be in a place the speaks English (sort of in some cases. :D ). And I think there might be some counties in the US larger than some European countries. :D :D
 
Ghery said:
This also comes up when Europeans get after Americans for only speaking one language. It's a survival skill for them. On the other hand, I can drive for a few days and still be in a place the speaks English (sort of in some cases. :D ). And I think there might be some counties in the US larger than some European countries. :D :D
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I have found that English is the default language in many countries (both European (Scotland excluded) and Asian), especially with the younger generation.

On the subject of cars I have enjoyed driving in Europe (yes, even the UK). Higher speed limits, better fuel efficiency, comfortable cars, many with really nice diesels and manual transmissions are the default. Most of the time my fuel economy exceeds mid 30's MPG and performance is not bad at all.

I don't drive in China.
 
Pi1otguy said:
Wind power also kills birds and bats. Apparently large birds see the blades and will fly through not just once, but circle until hit. Bats OTOH, "see" the blades but enter a low pressure zone and explode (sort of).

The expensive part is the fact that there is a lot of opposition to building power lines to transmit power from these sites. A few power companies in CA have been battling for years to get transmission lines built from the "green" solar & wind farms to their customer base, but have faced stiff opposition from environmental groups.
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Not just opposition, routing through built up areas may be needed to get the energy to the big city folks. What they show planned just north of Dallas now to get wind power to the area from west Texas is estimated to cost over $1,000,000 per mile.

Best,

Dave
 
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